Security Service release: Introduction

This is the 27th Security Service records release containing 171 files, bringing the total number of Security Service records at The National Archives to more than 4,896.

As with previous releases, around three quarters of the records are personal files relating to individuals (KV 2), with the remainder a combination of subject files (KV 3), organisation files (KV 5)and list files (KV 6). The records cover a range of subjects and span the inter-war, Second World War and post-war eras.

Some files have been weeded while others have been reconstituted from microfilm of the original document and are therefore in photocopy form. Most personal files include a minute sheet attached to the inside cover, providing a useful index to the file.

Highlights include:

An English schoolgirl trapped in France by the German invasion in 1940 at the age of 15, Antonia Hunt was arrested and then kept as an office girl by the Gestapo (rather than being sent to a concentration camp or shot as was most people's fate), where a German Officer apparently fell in love with her. (KV2/3552)

Former Spanish bullfighter, Angel Alcazar de Velasco was thought to be one of the original members of the Falange (Spanish Fascist Party). Given the role of the Press Attache at the Spanish Embassy in London, his true role was to monitor his colleagues and facilitate espionage. (KV2/3535- 3541)

With a mennonite religious background German Intelligence Officer Walter Pfitzinger alias Clergyman was thought to be "probably one of the heads of the Gestapo". He is described as a "dangerous man" and a "fanatical Nazi". (KV2/3571)

• 39 files on Cheddi and Janet Jagan, founders of the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in pre-independence British Guiana, and both future presidents of the independent nation of Guyana. They came to the attention of the Security Service because of their links to the British Communist Party and their Marxist views. (KV2/3600 - 3638)